Final Paper BRC450(Social Networks and the Web)

Arduino Development

A Project Development Open Source Social Network

Samuel Kiesinger

Initially Tim Nuthall and I were going to work on a project together but our schedules were both full and we could not seem to meet. So I began working on a project that I could do myself.

While I wanted something to spread, more importantly I wanted something that mattered to spread. I am naturally skilled at grabbing people’s attention but usually I do this through inane comments or pointless statements that while(sometimes) humorous, rarely hold any real significance. I settled on a niche community I have been slowly becoming a part of over the past few months. The Arduino Development Community. With less than fifty-thousand people worldwide it is truly a niche on the internet. After thinking about it for a while I realized that starting a movement of any type requires that initial small group of hardcore believers. These initial nodes in a social network either already are or strive to become hubs themselves and will put you closer to the critical threshold at a much faster and cheaper rate than even the most expensive advertising campaign.

For a little background knowledge the Arduino is a microcontroller, meaning it can be hooked up to motors, servos and sensors etc. Pictured to the right it is one of the first fully Open Source manufactured products on the market. While I wouldn’t call it a “Consumer” electronic device, it is sold online to a small market of people in the do-it-yourself community by a number of manufacturers. There is a dedicated community built around the device and the other Arduino-compatible devices on the market.

A single location for Arduino Developers to discuss projects and work together means that they won’t have to log into each blog service to post their comment and tools better suited to collaboration can be implemented. Lowering the effort needed to partake in a project may promote not only the site as a quality tool but make the Arduino a more centralized platform for prototype creation. Being as one of the weaknesses of many Open Source software/projects is the lack of a central location to build a community off from.

I began to query the need for such a community online, while there is an official forum for this device and a search for “Arduino projects” will being up hundreds of blog posts I realized there was no real site where one could go to see just Arduino projects and check out other tinkerers and inventors. So I set out to build a network like this. I searched for a service that hosted files as that would be needed for a site like this as well as being able to post projects and the like. The best I found was Collectivex.com. After setting it up I had to find a way to draw people in.

Considering I only had very weak ties as a new and completely unknown Arduino Developer my options were/are limited. The very best I could come up with was posting in forums which I knew would be perceived as spam, an action that most communities but especially hard core users look down upon. So I decided to map out the social network of the established hubs and see where to start from there.

A quick analysis of the social network of tinkerers and do-it-yourself sites showed me that several sites acted as gate-keepers. If you posted a few popular projects there you earned a perhaps unquantifiable kind of credence in the community. Similar to our Attention Economy game there are members who routinely get their projects posted and you see their personal blogs just light up with activity, the rest of us are just riding their coattails with our comments.

This realization is a practical example of the Power Law, pictured to the left. Whereby there are many nodes with few links(left of the chart) and only a few nodes with many links(to the right of the chart)

There was only one way I could come up with to obtain not just “hits” but “activity” on the social network. I don’t want people clicking then moving on. In my research online I discovered an article on the “Power Law of Participation” (Mayfield, 2006) which had some excellent quotes, “Social software brings groups together to discover and create value. The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users will not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value.”

Considering the group of people I was reaching, techies who spend their time tinkering with inventions on a daily basis, the willingness to engage in the community is much higher. Yet even with this knowledge I now understand that you can’t just put up a site and hope people will flock to it based on its usefulness or where you posted the link.

I had to cause them to think “hey this could be useful, I think that I would like to join and participate.” Considering what I’ve learned about social networks I wanted to overcome the standard high-click rate but low participation levels and the best way to do this was to not ask people to join but rather show them the site in action with my project itself and let them choose to join themselves. Otherwise it would become another failed social network or obtain a reputation of spamming forums for members.

With limited funds to obtain the proper parts and equipment I built the best example of a liquor dispenser design I’d been working on for several months I could with the parts I had available, the end result was this duct taped monstrosity.

A simple liquid pump powered by a small servo to pump it. This is prototype number one. Sadly the motor I had was not strong enough and even though I ordered a new one with time to spare, about two weeks later with no package I called the company and they were on backorder. This pushed me too close to the end of the semester for the project to succeed, as the gatekeepers do not generally accept utterly nonfunctioning designs.

The idea however was to create a barely functional prototype on purpose. With a carefully crafted set of instructions and blog posts on the device, the idea that “here’s my idea, but I’d like the advice from more experienced users” could be conveyed. Playing on their egos slightly I was hoping to lure them into signing up on the site and “helping” me, while at the same time realizing the usefulness of such an internet service and not exactly acknowledging that I had started the site and was attempting to gain their support for it.

I realize now that perhaps this was too ambitious of a project to undertake with a lack of real funds to make it legitimate as just informing people of the networking site would not be sufficient for a group that disdains any form of spam or advertising. That said I don’t regret taking this route as I wanted a network which had real significance.

While I have summed up why it failed over the semester I am going to continue the project on my own and attempt to “do it right” using the knowledge I’ve gathered so far.

This is how I plan to begin growing this into a legitimate, useful social networking utility.

1. Find a professional, open source social networking script and open up a real website
   1. Why? The more I get to know the Open Source community the more I realize it has to be independent to really be adopted by them and most likely it has to be powered by Open Source software.

1. Complete a functional model of the liquor dispenser.
   1. These factors may reduce the threshold to participation.
   2. Make the liquor dispenser the first project on the site.
      1. Show the site in action to show the usefulness of it.
      2. Ask people who stop in to read the project details to join and help me develop it.
         1. Playing on the desire for developers to share knowledge and teach new members of the DIY community will entice them to join and lend a hand. Once they join they may find the site works for their projects as well.
         2. Send a release to the major hubs online.
            1. Hackaday.com
            2. Makezine(post full project with link back)
            3. Digg.com
            4. Reddit.com
            5. Various other blogs
            6. It’s one thing to create another social network but if you’re the first to create a tool for a particular group in mind much more attention can be garnered in the real attention economy.

While I realize this is all moves I should have made for the project itself, I also realize that it is difficult to begin something of this level with no starting funds. I estimate it is going to cost me $75-100 to obtain hosting and the proper software/themes etc to create a presentable page. Also the time required to tweak the software to my needs will probably range beyond 15-20 hours of solid work if I’m lucky.

Essentially this is a visual representation of what the ideal situation would be. With me in the corner I represent a relatively unconnected node. I carry no weight in the blogosphere and my ability to attract attention to any project is severely limited unless I attach myself to one of the main hubs. It is hoped that with a functional prototype I would have my project posted on roughly the same week on the main hacker blogs. Because of the novelty and relative simplicity of the project itself it is my hope the liquor dispenser would attract a large amount of attention as it has a low threshold of effort to participate.

Based on what I’ve learned in the class I’ve realized that the network system we are looking at here is a Scale Free Network, pictured to the left.

This type of network essentially means that in order for any idea/illness/etc to spread with any efficiency it has to pass through one or more hubs. Preferably the more hubs, the faster the threshold point can be reached.

My hope is that that combining several factors will create an atmosphere which will pull users in who use the same blogs I do to keep track of Arduino projects and move them from the periphery of readership upwards into collaborating and developing projects as a group. The chart accompanying the Power Law of Participation article highlights the problem with participation.

This chart is a great example of one of the problems with participation online. As long as it’s easy you will get many clicks but the more effort a user has to put forth, the fewer and fewer users participate.

Over the summer with the lack of classes and working full time I will use my extra time and financial resources to continue to pursue this project. While it failed due to inexperience on my part for setting up effective websites and being unable to complete the “lure” to hook the masses I’m hoping to overcome these issues and produce an actually effective tool for a small community of developers.

Works Cited

Mayfield, R. (2006, 4 26). Ross Mayfield’s Weblog. Retrieved 4 2009, from http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/power_law_of_pa.html

My First Open Source Project:

While this is primarily a blog about technology and how it applies in our work school and play I’d like to use it to start tracking my first open source project combining two hobbies of mine. Inventing and drinking…

Dear Developers: No More Multi-Touch Photo Albums

Some of you may or may not be aware of one of the biggest fads to hit the tech community in recent years. If you haven’t heard about multi-touch click the link to see what Wikipedia has to say about the technology. The first paragraph is a concise introduction.

What we’ve got here is probably a technology with more potential for changing how we interact with computers more than any other innovation since the mouse. Yet all we have seen so far is high-end and fairly useless applications for the average consumer. Such as the Microsoft Surface. While it’s a great idea none of us are going to be shelling out about $10,000 anytime soon. The absurdity of this is captured almost perfectly in a Youtube Parody video.

Don’t want to be a DPH but still want free media?

In recent months the RIAA(Recording Industry Association of America) has cracked down on college campuses nationwide including my own SUNY at Oswego in another effort to reduce piracy. Regardless of where you stand on the moral issue of piracy everyone would love to(safely) obtain free or relatively inexpensive music/movies/tv online. I’ve put together a short list of your best options and will would like to explain a few basic issues around online music and video today.

Electronic Paper. A real life “Daily Prophet” just around the corner.

As I sit here in Penfield waiting for several Zombies from the Humans Vs. Zombies game to stop waiting for me outside the front door I decided to sit down and share one of my absolutely favorite technologies lately.

Some of you may know what electronic paper is but for those of you who don’t here’s the lowdown. Imagine having a computer screen as thin as paper itself that can be folded, rolled up or treated as any regular sheet of printer paper. The only exception being it could display changing text or video, ala Harry Potters Daily Prophet. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well the primitive version of this technology is already on the market today!

Electronic-Readers such as the Sony Reader or Amazons’ Kindle display books, newspapers, blogs and other electronic documents on a screen that resembles paper almost perfectly, using a patented technology called e-ink. This past year numerous other vendors have also introduced a much wider variety of e-readers to the market with a variety of other e-ink type technologies. 2009 promises to be “The year of the e-book” as a much larger variety of these devices are slated for release with much lower prices including the first full color e-readers.

Why is this so important? Why does it interest me so much? I believe this might be the biggest technological advance for the print medium since movable type. The ability to carry around 30-50 books in a device weighing less than a pound is such a leap forward and holds so many promises for it’s use.

After two years of carefully watching the development of the technology I was confident within the decade we’d see books that looked and felt like traditional books but the text and pictures could be “reloaded” to be any book or paged document you wished it to become. Then Esquire magazine released a special edition displaying an electronic ink cover. Though primitive and in my opinion mildly tacky it was the first periodical to implement the technology. Now I’ve had to revise my prediction from ten years to perhaps no more than five before we see the above mentioned technology. You can see a copy of the E-ink Esquire issue in the window of The Oswegonian offices in the Campus Center.

The possibilities are almost endless. Imagine being able to carry one textbook around with you and “load” each book you need for every class once you sit down in that class. With the addition of touchscreen for every page and the ability to play video on the paper you could create an “Active-Textbook” in which are audio lectures, video clips and interactive “widgets” similar to online flash games and such all built into the book itself.

This development also makes for the possibility of less expensive textbooks. If you merely download the book files to book-reading device there is no printing or shipping to add to the price of the book. The environmental benefits of one book capable of being any book or newspaper or magazine I would imagine will add up quickly over the life of the device.

All things considered the future of Electronic Paper is an exciting one and I am looking forward to seeing future advances in this area as they develop. In the next article I will be showing you places to get free or almost free movies/music/media in general in a completely legal and ethical way that won’t get you in trouble with the dreaded RIAA.

Free Group Project Management Sites

As a college student who’s only been part of a mere two group projects in my college career I already discovered what a challenge/pain in the ass it could be to organize and focus a group to produce quality work.

For the most part what held us back was simple logistics of project management. For example while developing a business plan in a management course last semester we had six people with six jump drives and six email accounts shooting documents and updated versions of said documents back and forth day and night. Then there were communication issues when someone couldn’t make a meeting or we changed the time or location of it. If one person with a designated task didn’t show up an entire portion of the project had to be placed on hold. I’m pretty confident everyone reading this has experienced much of, if not all of these issues when working in groups.

A few weeks into the project I got tired of these and other impending problems and went searching for a solution. I came up with Central Desktop. A form of corporate “Intranet” which allows simple but tedious tasks to be accomplished in a more efficient manner by using a simple web-based format.

This is one of numerous project management sites popping up on the net today. Sites like Central Desktop, Google Docs, BaseCamp or Wiggio(my personal favorite) allow users to share a calender, files and links with each other over the internet through an easily accessed but secure website.

While in retrospect the complexity of Central Desktop was perhaps a degree or two higher than what we needed and that did cause mild confusion, the concept behind the site was solid and I liked it.

This semester I am a teachers assistant for the same management course I discovered Central Desktop in. Several weeks before the semester started I decided to do a little research on alternatives to Central Desktop. I was seeking something slightly less complicated and just smidgen on the free side.

Below is a short list of the most useful sites I found. If you know of another similar tool please share it with us in the comments!

• Google Docs
  • Google Documents is probably the simplest on the list. A short video on their homepage sums up the project. If all you need is a place for your group(or even yourself) to create/edit/store documents this is an excellent choice. I personally use it while on a campus computer so I can access the files when I’m on my own system later. Databases, spreadsheets, word documents and powerpoint files can be created, shared and manipulated by anyone with a google account.

• BaseCamp
  • BaseCamp appears to be geared more towards professionals and the free version does not include the ability to store files but if you only require task tracking, a central calender and the use of a whiteboard-like feature this should do the job quite nicely.
• Wiggio
  • Wiggio is currently being used by members of the management course I am a TA for and so far the results have been promising. While being able to store files in one location, share a calender and leave comments for each other on the group page it also has a few features above and beyond all free alternatives I have found as of today.
    • The ability to set up a chat room or conference call meeting, complete with chat room archiving for easy reference later.
    • You can send out a text to any one individual or to all members of the group through the site, say if you’re running late to a meeting or have other urgent news for the group.

After emailing the staff about my experiences I learned that the next few months they are making some exciting new additions. The current plans are as follows:

• Folders
  • With folders you can organize a large number of files easier.
• Calender synching with a variety of planners including Google Calender, Outlook Etc.
  • Ever have to sit down and find a time to meet? This will import your electronic schedule and help a group sort out the best times to meet.
• Video Conferencing
  • Have a commuter in your group or is someone just unable to make it to a meeting? They can still take part in the meeting by using a mic and webcamera.
• Drag and Drop File Handling
  • If you have numerous files to upload you will be able just to drag them from wherever they exist on your computer into a folder on Wiggio and you’re done.

The reason I prefer Wiggio and recommend it over the other options is the entire site was designed with students in mind, taking advantage of how our generation communicates and organizes information. Wiggio strikes a balance between complicated features like text alerts and a simple layout which unlike the new Facebook does not require a users manual to understand. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to make their projects run smoother.

Adopting technologies like these is going to allow our generation shift its energy from the tedious logistical micromanaging and focus on higher quality end results while reducing the stress involved.

Why hello there.  It’s time for a cleverly crafted alliterated introduction to yet another blog that I am very sure the vast majority of you will stop reading if I continue more than a few syllables.  So lets get right to the point.

My name is Sam Kiesinger.  I am a Business Administration student attending SUNY at Oswego in the middle of nowhere NYS.  My interests include everything from graphic design, environmental science and interjecting myself into random strangers conversations just to gauge the level of discomfort I cause.

I decided to finally start a serious blog that addresses one of my favorite topics, technology.  A few areas of extreme interest for me are the novel applications of existing technologies in our daily lives and the use of technology in education.

Basically I will be filling this blog with links of interest and my comments on the topics they discuss.

So yes, this is the awkward ending to an awkward introductory post…